THE COMPLETE ANGLER. 169 



season. He is able to live in the strongest swifts of the water ; 

 and in summer, they love the shallowest and sharpest streams ; 

 and love to lurk under weeds, and to feed on gravel, against a 

 rising ground, and will root and dig in the sands with his nose like 

 a hog, and there nests himself ; yet sometimes he retires to deep 

 and swift bridges, or floodgates, or weirs, where he will nest him- 

 self amongst piles, or hollow places ; and take such hold of moss 

 or weeds, that be the water never so swift, it is not able to 

 force him from the place that he contends for. This is his 

 constant custom in summer, when he and most living creatures 

 sport themselves in the sun : but at the approach of winter, 

 then he forsakes the swift streams and shallow waters, and by- 

 degrees retires to those parts of the river that are quiet and 

 deeper, in which places, and I think about that time, he 

 spawns ; and, as I have formerly told you, with the help of the 

 melter, hides his spawn, or eggs, in holes, which they both dig 

 in the gravel : and then they mutually labour to cover it with 

 the same sand, to prevent it from being devoured by_ other fish. 



There be such store of this fish in the river Danube, that 

 Rondeletius says, they may, in some places of it, and in some 

 months of the year, be taken by those who dwell near to the 

 river, with their hands, eight or ten load at a time. He says 

 they begin to be good in May, and that they cease to be so in 

 August : but it is found to be otherwise in this nation. But 

 thus far we agree with him, that the spawn of a Barbel, if it be 

 not poison, as he says, yet that it is dangerous meat, and espe- 

 cially in the month of May ; which is so certain, that Gesner 

 and Gasius declare it had an ill effect upon them, even to the 

 endangering of their lives.* 



This fish is of a fine cast and handsome shape, with small 

 scales, which are placed after a most exact and curious manner ; 

 and, as I told you, may be rather said not to be ill, than to be 

 good meat. The Chub and he have, I think, both lost part 

 of their credit by ill cookery, they being reputed the worst, or 

 coarsest, of fresh water fish. But the Barbel aflords an angler 

 choice sport, being a lusty and a cunning fish so lusty and 

 cunning as to endanger the breaking of the angler's line, by 

 running his head forcibly towards any covert, or hole, or bank, 



* Though the spawn of the Barbel is known to be of a poisonous nature, 

 yet it is often taken by country people medicinally, who find it at once a 

 most powerful emetic and cathartic. And, notwithstanding what is said 

 of the wholesomeness of the flesh, with some constitutions it produces the 

 same effects as the spawn. About the month of September, in the year 

 1754, a servant of mine, who had eaten part of a Barbel, though, as I had 

 cautioned him, he abstained from the spawn, was seized with such a violent 

 purging and vomiting, as had like to have cost him his life. H. 



The same is true of most fish, more particularly sea fish, which are at 

 times found to become poisonous; but the cause has never been dis- 

 covered. J. R. 



